Running – 12 Steps to Beating the Kenyans & Ethiopians

Running – 12 Steps to Beating the Kenyans & Ethiopians
By Frank Howill
From http://www.serpentine.org.uk/advice/coach/fh39.php
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I think that these could be applied to all sports - Jamie

1. Get rid of the television. The news is invariably depressing. Instead of watching others amuse us, we should entertain ourselves with mental and physical activity. If you must watch it, tune in to ITV, the commercial breaks give you an opportunity to leap up and do some press-ups or bent-knee abdominals. Only 1 in 50 Kenyans have television.
2. Sell your car and become a rich pedestrian. Buy a bicycle. 5 miles of cycling is equal to 1 mile of running. 1 in 3 Kenyans own a bicycle.
3. Cook your own food. Fast-food shops have not caught on in Kenya. They don’t like fried food. They boil and roast. Obesity in Kenya affects only 1 in 200. In Britain, the ratio is 25 overweight people per 100.
4. Abolish or drastically reduce unemployment benefit and welfare hand-outs. In Kenya you work or starve or run to earn a living. If you become a mother, you must provide for the offspring. There is no unemployment or welfare benefit in Kenya. They have learned that man’s destiny on earth is work.
5. Don’t buy children computer games. In 100 years’ time our heads will be twice the size. Our bodies will be the same size as our heads.
6. Schools should alter their modus operandi to 4 hours of study in the morning and 2 hours sport in the afternoon, every day of the week.
7. Don’t watch over-paid sportsmen perform. Instead, perform yourself.
8. Burn down shops that sell tobacco and liquor to under-age juveniles.
9. Get away from too technical jargon in running training. In Kenya, they think microcycles, macrocycles and mesocycles are different types of Japanese motorbike.
10. Train at altitude for a month at a time, 3 times a year.
11. Make 1/3 of your total running much faster than the other 2/3.
12. Be carried off the running track once a week on a stretcher, due to exhaustion